Antibiotic Prophylaxis in Elective Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: a Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis

To determine the effectiveness and harms of using antibiotic prophylaxis (ABP) versus placebo/no intervention in patients undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy (eLCC) to prevent surgical site infection (SSI).

We searched MEDLINE (OVID), EMBASE, LILACS, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) from inception to October 2017. We included clinical trials which involved adults at low risk undergoing eLCC and compared ABP versus placebo/no intervention. The primary outcome was SSI and secondary outcomes were other infections and adverse effects. Cochrane Collaboration tool was used to assess the risk of bias. We performed the statistical analysis in R and reported information about risk difference (RD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). Heterogeneity was evaluated using the I² test. We produced network diagrams to show the amount of evidence available for each outcome and the most frequent comparison.

We included 18 studies in qualitative and quantitative analysis. The antibiotics most commonly studied were cefazolin and cefuroxime. We found high risk of detection bias in one study and attrition bias in another. Unclear risks of selection, performance, and detection bias were frequent. For SSI, we found no heterogeneity I² = 0% and no inconsistency p = 0.9780. No significant differences were found when compared ABP versus placebo/no intervention. Cefazolin had a RD of - 0.00 (95% CI - 0.01 to 0.01). We found no differences in regular meta-analysis, with a RD of - 0.00 (95% CI - 0.01 to 0.01) as well as for intra-abdominal and distant infections. Adverse effects were only assessed in one study, without any case reported.

This systematic review demonstrated no differences between ABP versus placebo/no intervention when using to prevent SSI and intra-abdominal and distant infections in patients at low risk undergoing eLCC.